Well shut the front door! While I’d like to give credit to whoever gave me the idea, I surfed so much youtube that I don’t know who to thank. I was trying to come up with a better way of oiling the clothes pin halves.For the price of four casters and a HD bucket, I thought I’d try making a ‘parts tumbler’ of sorts. To my delight it worked like a charm.

First some pieces of pine to keep the pins tumbling. Attached through the outside of the bucket with screws

Then casters on a piece of ply

Then a bolt through the lid from the inside out, leaving the end of the bolt sticking out

Then filled the bucket about 1/2 full with clothespins. The ‘tumbling medium’ was three tampons (sorry gents) with the strings cut off soaked in mineral oil.

Then put the lid on, chucked the end of the bolt into the drill. Clamped the drill to the vise and then used another clamp to keep the drill running on low speed in reverse.

The frame is out of pine and 2×4s. I didn’t want to use hardwood until I worked out any problems with the design and saw whether it worked or not. The plates sit on rails and can move back and forth toward or away from the fence. There is a small gap between the fence and the plates to allow the sawdust to get through. I already know that I need the surface to the far right of the routers to be longer. Other than that I’m open to suggestions. It works well, but probably after this next clothespin season I’ll redo it into a proper cabinet.

I’m not sure whether I need a feather board or not…. Any thoughts?

ORIGINAL MESSAGEI’ve been trying to come up with a way to streamline the production of my clothespins. I haven’t been able to keep up with the demand so I’m trying to get more efficient.

I make four passes with three different bits on my router table for each blank that gets turned into clothespins. (number of pins per blank depends on width). That means a lot of bit changes and adjusting.

So I’ve been thinking about getting a second hand router. Which led to thinking about a second table, which led to thinking about…. well you know how it goes.

So here’s the idea I need feedback on

WHAT IF, I built a router table with several routers (always lots on kijiji) . The fence would be fixed (as in not expensive), but the router plates (like these: http://www.elitetools.ca/en/product/phenolic-router-plate/ ) would be placed at various distances from the fence according to which groove was being routed.

So could it be done in such a way that I could run the blank across several router bits, one after another? Because the blanks are a fixed length, I could us feather boards…..

Sandra, I can’t follow what bits you are doing what cuts with. Would you just shove your stock down a line of routers and cut it consecutively or do you make a pass and then turn the stock for another pass?

If you are going down the line, just mount the routers that way.

Rather than make three router tables, how about three routers mounted on a circular piece that can be turned to bring the three routers to bear. I wouldn’t bother with mounting plates.

I hate changing router bits. I have 7 routers set up in my shop. Some of them are just screwed to the bottom of 3/4 inch plywood. You need to make one zero clearance hole for that particular bit and another partial hole for the chuck that holds the bit. If you have cut away room for the router chuck, the bit doesn’t need to stick too far out of the chuck. I recommend 1/2 inch shanks on your bits.

SandraLooking at your close pins under your projects .It seems having several routers may not be necessary especially after viewing your shop that seems pretty full,that makes the idea of have a router table 8’ long or even the triangular model as cool as it is,will take up too much room. It looks like the clothes pins could be made with one or two small table saw sleds and one router table with just a couple set ups. Since you don’t like changing bits perhaps a better router table set up is in order with a lift to ease router bit changes. Usually in production type work you do one step at a time ,so if your making 200 clothes pins or whateveryou follow the logical method,perhaps drilling some holes before cutting them out.you may be able to lay them out in such a way drilling the holes and sawing them with a small table saw sled will make more than one clothes pin at a time. If you still think that having several routers will work best how about several very portable hanging router set ups ,Like one of these that you can buy or make,the first one is from rockler,the rest are very simple,after you get the tuned in you can just screw a fence in place set were you want

Lots of great ideas. I do one pass at a time, as many blanks as I have in that batch. Then I change bits and run them through again. Im trying to cut down the number of times I handle the blanks but maybe that’s not possible.

I’ll post a picture of my TS sled for some of the grooves. Hate posting on my phone. Will add detAils